West is Best Part 2 – West Aussie Words

Cool Drinks v Fizzy Drinks

(Dingo puts professor glasses on) – The Macquaire Dictionary defines a ‘cool drink’ to be… 

Scrap that! Cool drinks are us WA mob’s way of saying carbonated drink. 

You know, like Coke, Fanta, Sprite, all that sugary jazz! Easy enough? Well, you’d think, but apparently the other term that gets thrown around a fair bit is “soft drink”. Does that mean alcoholic beverages would be considered “hard drinks”? Who knows…

The overeasters, particularly South Aussies apparently say “fizzy drink” instead of soft drink? 

What’s that all about? Way too descriptive for my liking, although it’s still better than American term “soda” – you’d never catch a true Aussie legend asking for one of those!

Sausage Sizzle

This one has me questioning everything! 

Us West Aussies have an array of different terms that we used but NONE! I mean NONE! Are used more than the term (that is apparently not used in any other state in Australia) “sausage sizzle”. 

Synonymous to the big green warehouse is the piping hot snag in white bread, chuck on a handful of onions, a lacing of tommy sauce and a drizzle of mustard and that’s right folks – you have yourself your very own sausage sizzle! 

Now tickle my pickle, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I found out that the mob over east seem to run with some incredibly uninspiring terms for our great nation’s most patriotic meal. Yes, meal.

Now the NSW and ACT civilians are running with the term ‘sausage sandwich’ which is pretty damn boring and to be honest, quite incorrect. Don’t you need two slices of bread in order to call something a sandwich? Surely this crew aren’t doubling down on their white bread and practically shunning the delicious sausage amongst so much flour and wheat! Let the snag breathe! 

Now the Queenslanders and Vics, they run by one of the most sad and uninspiring terms I have ever thought could exist. Let’s get some thing straight; the sausage sizzle is our nation’s treasure! Surely we can’t go calling it as the Vics do: ‘sausage in bread’! 

Where’s the creativity? Where’s the fun? Where’s  the inspiration? We can only hope that the said ‘bread’ is not as dry as the name they use is. 

Water Fountain

Now, this one takes me all the way back to puppy school, when you had to ask to pop out of the classroom to grab yourself a little drink from the fountain. Let’s take a quick lap around the Aussie schoolyards to find out what these ones are called. 

Turns out the New South Wales and Queesland mobs actually agree on something (which is stunning) and that is that they are both adamant that the correct term for these fountains is in fact “bubblers.” To be frank that just has me picturing them really struggling to get the water in their gobs – while the stuff is just bubbling around with one of the saddest examples of water pressure ever seen.  

As we tilt slightly west, to the South Aus crew, it appears that they believe these little beauties are called ‘drinking fountains,’ which makes sense – but is oddly instructional. 

Us West Aussies go more along the lines of drink or water fountain. No verbs required to explain what we do with the fountain. Just strong adjectives to describe the things! 

At least there’s one thing we should be able to agree on – whether it’s a bubbler, drinking fountain, water tap or any of the other alternatives, one this is for certain. All the water that comes out of these machines tastes a little weird… Doesn’t it?

Dance = Pants?

One for the drama centric units. I reckon this one will separate where the english twang still remains amongst the Aussie states. The question is relatively simple, when you pronounce the word dance, does it rhyme with pants or does it rhyme with aunts? 

Now I have good word, that well over the majority of Australia, the likes of WA, Queensland, NSW and Victoria all run with dance = pants, however there does seem to be quite the cluster of dance = aunts located in South Australia. Must be a few royals out in SA trying to propper everyone up.  

Even the Tassie pack agree that dance rhymes with pants – good to see they’re taking a stance or as the SA mob would say a Starrrrrnce.

The Deli

Alright, it’s Sunday morning, your mum’s asked you to head down to grab a newspaper, a bottle of milk and a bag of mixed lollies. I know what you’re thinking. “No wonder mum’s diets never work!” But the real question here is what do you call the little shop you’re about to set sail on your push bike for?

Us West and even South Aussies call it the Deli! While the Queensland and NSW’s crews reckon it they would head down to the ‘corner shop.’ Are there more Delis over east than there are in the West – like enough for them to have one on every single corner?

The Vics reckon they would head down to the milk bar. Yeah sounds like vintage olden day Australia doesn’t it – something your great grandpa would tell you. “Well it was a rather crisp autumn morning, I’d just finished working on Dad’s car and decided to pop down to the milk bar to grab the paper and that’s when I met your Grandmother, standing on the other side of the counter, our hands met as I handed her my 6 pence…” Goooood stuff gramps!